Tela, Hold the Dragon

          The world falls silent. Blood pools next to Tela at the stage. Garan stares in shock, horrified by what he’d just done. The crowd is speechless. Even the judges are disgusted by the scene on stage. Tela looks down and cuts the silence with a blood curdling scream.

          Before her now, in a nest of blood, is Tela’s hand. Goldy, oblivious to the weight of the situation, only knew Tela was hurt and began to lick where her hand once was. This only causes her to wail louder. The dragon’s tongue doesn’t hurt, it’s even soothing. But the sight of Tela’s insides being touched at all is too much for her to fathom. So, instead, she screams. And screams. And screams.

Suddenly, as quickly as it came, the pain has stopped, and with it her screams. She looks to her stump. It’s healed over with a new layer of perfect skin. And then she turns to Goldy. His eyes look happy, like he’s satisfied with his work.

          Garan is the first to break the silence.

          “Tela, I’m so sorry. I am so, so, so sorry. I was trying to help.”

          Tela can only look back at him in fear and disbelief. He starts to approach but she pulls away from him, holding Goldy’s head close to her body. The judges have been whispering amongst themselves, and one is finally ready to speak.

          “Well, Tela, while this has been quite the spectacle, we have decided you can perform your examination once again at a future date on account of your… misfortunes. Now, if you could simply leave the dragon and--”

          “No!” Tela screams. “You are not taking him. We are not eating him! Didn’t you see what he did to my arm?”

          The judges nod to one another. “It seems, my poor girl, you’ve been in an unfortunate kitchen incident. It happens to the best of us. While the beasts are mostly docile, occasionally one can come from the roughage with a bit of an attitude and lash out. Our apologies for that.”

          “That is not what happened and you know it!”

          “Is it not? We have three prestigious members of the Chef’s Guild here that might attest otherwise.” The judge turns to Garan in question, who’s still petrified. Finally, Garan nods.

          “Four members, as a matter of fact. Now, girl, please escort the dragon back to its cage and we can forget all about today.”

          Tela, less traumatized by the loss of her limb than the realization of the cruelty behind the Chef’s Guild, sluggishly to stand up in despair. She goes to push off the hand she no longer has and begins to fall, only for Goldy to gently nudge her back to her feet with his head. She looks to him again, puts her remaining hand on his head and guides him towards the cage.

          “It’ll be okay, Tela,” Garan says.

          “We’ll see,” Tela responds, only to begin bolting past the cage. Goldy runs close by her side, looking up towards her with excitement about the new game they’ve begun playing.

          “Faster, Goldy, we have to get out of here!” She’s already past the stage when another judge finally yells out.

          “Sequi!” The judge waves a wand through the air and from it, dark silhouettes resembling knights begin to spill out from its end like ink in water. Tela isn’t even to the end of the town block before they’ve nearly caught up to her. They begin to grasp at her, and she’s tripping over her own feet trying to outpace them. Goldy, at least recognizing she’s trying to go faster even if he is oblivious to the dangers they face, ducks his head under her chest and lifts her onto his back. Once she’s found her grip on his neck he starts really sprinting, leaving a growing gap between him and the shadowy knights.

          Somewhere in their escape, Tela forgets why they were running and starts to enjoy the ride as she speeds through the streets atop Goldy. House after house passes in the blink of an eye, and Goldy darts between pedestrians before they can even register he’s inbound. For a moment, Tela forgets she’s without a hand, because now she might as well have wings herself. She laughs when she can, but finds its all too easy to choke on the occasional insect if she leaves her mouth open too long.

          In this moment, she is weightless and the world around her is a playground. She can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. She can grab the world like she grabs Goldy’s neck and do whatever she likes whenever she likes. She can probably die. No, she’s definitely going to die.

          She’s headed straight for a large cliff, the edge of town, and despite what she said before about going anywhere, she doesn’t know how to steer this thing. Goldy seems to have no intentions about slowing down. She throws her hands up over her head so as not to see the plummet.

          “You dumb, dumb, dumb dragon,” she mutters, until it turns into a scream. She waits for them to hit the ground, for the dragon to become soup after all with her as a garnish. But it still has yet to come. Plummeting is not as quick as she thought.

          She opens her eyes and realizes they’re not plummeting at all. They’re doing the opposite. They’re anti-plummeting.

         They’re flying. The word bounces around her head for a while. Maybe if it hits enough corners of her skull it’ll finally make sense. She’s really flying. Mostly. Goldy is a young dragon, and while he can probably carry himself, he’s struggling with her on his back.

          Okay, I’ll settle for gliding I guess, she thinks to herself sarcastically. After some time, they land in a lush field. Tela rolls off Goldy’s back onto her own into a soft bed of grass and stares up at the sky. I was just there, she thinks to herself, and points to it with her finger, tracing the path they took. Goldy rests his head on Tela, falling asleep after some time.

          Tela’s finger eventually traces its way back to where they came from: Hearthshire. And she realizes she has to get back at some point. It’s probably at least a few hours away by foot, even if it was just a few minutes in the air. But she can’t stand to break this moment. So she follows Goldy’s lead for once and rests her eyes.

          When she wakes up, Goldy is wrapped around her again and she has his wing pulled against her face, draping it across her like a blanket. The evening air has taken on an orange hue, and she knows that means she must be getting home now if she’s to arrive back before dark. She moves Goldy’s wing, stands up, and hugs his head tightly before she begins walking away.

         She’s only a few steps through the field when she hears Goldy walking behind her, and she realizes something. Something awful.

          Goldy still loves her. And she lives among people. And people want to kill Goldy.

          “Goldy, go away.” She pushes him back gently on the head and continues walking, only for him to continue following.

          “Goldy, I said go away. You have to stay here.” She stops and pushes him back harder. It confuses Goldy, so he stops and she continues to walk, then he follows from a slight distance. Tela, with tears in her eyes, hears his footsteps, and knows what she has to do. She turns to face Goldy.

          “Go away, you stupid dragon! They don’t want you! You have to stay here!” Goldy, for the first time in the short time she’s known him, looks hurt. He turns his head to the ground and looks up at her apologetically. With tears in her eyes, she starts to walk away, only to hear quieted footsteps behind her still.

          “I don’t want you! Can’t you understand that? Get out of here!” She reaches down, finds a small rock in the grass, and throws it to land at his feet. Goldy lurches back, looks at the rock that nearly hit him, then back at Tela. He flashes a look of confusion and a loud hiss before he flies deeper into the field, away from Tela and the town.

          With clenched fists and teary eyes, Tela walks back to town.

          “I’m sorry, Goldy,” she repeats to herself. “I’ll be back. I promise.”